Rodney Simmons is a life long resident of Bedford County. He grew up in the Halls Mill area and graduated from Community High School. Rodney's career has primarily been in the construction industry and he holds a degree in Construction Management. Some of his hobbies include fishing, reading and writing.

Lung Cancer

Posted Tuesday, November 1, 2011, at 4:52 PM

Raising awareness of cancer, the causes and the treatments are one way to help battle this horrible disease. The more educated people are the better chance they have at surviving if they are diagnosed with cancer. November is Lung Cancer Awareness month. There are two major types of lung cancer, small cell and non-small cell. According to the American Cancer Society, small cell lung cancer accounts for 10%-15% of all lung cancers while non-small cell lung cancer accounts for 85%-90% of all lung cancers.

Lung cancer (both small cell and non-small cell) is the second most common cancer in both men (after prostate cancer) and women (after breast cancer). It accounts for about 15% of all new cancers. Most recent estimates for lung cancer in the United States for 2011 show:

* About 221,130 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed (115,060 among men and 106,070 among women).

* There will be an estimated 156,940 deaths from lung cancer (85,600 among men and 71,340 among women), accounting for about 27% of all cancer deaths.

Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women. More people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined.

Lung cancer mainly occurs in older people. About 2 out of 3 people diagnosed with lung cancer are older than 65; fewer than 3% of all cases are found in people younger than 45. The average age at the time of diagnosis is about 71.

Overall, the chance that a man will develop lung cancer in his lifetime is about 1 in 13; for a woman, the risk is about 1 in 16. These numbers include both smokers and non-smokers. For smokers the risk is much higher, while for non-smokers the risk is lower.

Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the US, yet more than 46 million Americans still smoke. However, more than half of these smokers have attempted to quit for at least one day in the past year.

The American Cancer Society has marked November 17th as the Great American Smoke Out, which encourages people who smoke to use the date to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day. By doing so, smokers will be taking an important step towards a healthier life -- one that can lead to reducing cancer risk.

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My mom just passed away with this in october. she was diagnosed in june.

it was fast and horrid. She had chemo and radiation. I moved to Texas to care for her and when it spread to her bones, we moved her here so she could be with the rest of the family. it was so horrible to watch her struggle to breathe and her pain was incredible.

I told my son, this is the result of smoking for 60 years..

I used to make my mom so made when i was little, i would take her pall malls and tear them up and trash them... she told me right before she passed away she wished she had listened to me..